A Good Princess Died Too Young

September 01, 1997|The Morning Call

The death of Diana Frances Spencer at age 36 in Paris on Sunday is a shock to the world. In Great Britain and in countries with no connection to its royal-family traditions, she is being mourned not because she was famous or because she was beautiful, but because she used her gifts to do good.

Princess Diana died when the car that was carrying her crashed while being pursued by paparazzi, the photographers who followed her everywhere. Her companion, Dodi Fayed, and their chauffeur also died.

The tragedy is that the Princess was getting on with her life after her 1996 divorce from Prince Charles. That divorce, like their wedding in 1981, was conducted in a fish bowl. She was part of the "jet set," but she traveled around the world raising money for charities. She chose as her causes the things that the rest of the world tries to ignore: leprosy, people with AIDS and the victims of land mines.

It will take time to sort out blame for her death, but fame, and how it was exploited, was part of it. For now, she is being mourned because so many saw in her the generosity of spirit that they longed to find in the most famous of the world.